408 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



squares of our cotton belt, with their hideous architec- 

 tural surroundings; while even the sight of the worst 

 spots in the tropics has suggested the reflection that this 

 was at least better than what I had seen in some of the 

 cities of my own country. 



My task is done. I have tried to present the West 

 Indies as I have seen them. Americans who have not 

 visited or studied this neighboring region may have found 

 some of the statements and conclusions presented con- 

 trary to the popular opinion; but to the English public 

 what I have stated will be nothing new. Great Britain's 

 statesmen have long been aware of the condition and 

 destiny of these American islands, and in the writings of 

 Trollope, Froude, and others, written before the present 

 cataclysm of tropical history, may be found prophecies 

 which told of what has happened or is taking place. The 

 present struggles of the Spanish Creoles are but repeti- 

 tions of the events which took place in Haiti a century 

 ago, when England endeavored, unsuccessfully, to inter- 

 fere on the grounds of humanity, as we have done this 

 year. As these pages are being written, ominous fears are 

 expressed concerning the Cuban people; but Americans 

 will see that the intervention of our government has been 

 justifiable on every ground, and that that intervention in 

 behalf of the " Pearl of the Antilles " meant the beginning 

 of a better and brighter day for all the West Indies. The 

 establishment of trade relations in their natural channels, 

 and the sweeping away of the antique and barbarous 

 government of Cuba, will so influence the conditions of 

 the other islands that they must inevitably be bettered. 



